


Incoming Call

by ProwlingThunder



Series: Stardust [10]
Category: Gundam Wing, Transformers
Genre: Gen, Long-distance Signals, Matters of Affiliation, Mecha-Human Symbiosis, No Gundam War AU, PTSD, Repurposed Transformers, Transformers Are People Too, War With Aliens AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21985579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: Their satellite receiver is six people, six mechs, and morning tea.
Series: Stardust [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/202877
Kudos: 8





	Incoming Call

Quatre has, Sandrock tells him, a thirty minute gap in his memory. This is because, he elaborates, of information overload.

Quatre doesn't ignore him so much as let Sandrock's words wash over him, taking in the familiar sight of a tiled ceiling as he carefully goes over what he does remember. Because a blackout requires a recap, he knows that, he was a Gundam Pilot, after all. Blackouts can be issues.

He had been, of all things, having tea with the five most Sensitive people on Peacemillion. Five people who could hear, or be heard, by basically everyone linked to a mech. Five people just like himself. Then...

“You guys want to tell me whats going on anytime soon instead of just laying there like bumps on a log?”

Quatre blinked and pushed himself upright, turning to look at the source of the voice. It was a pilot, a former third-branch rebel of a rank nobody was inclined to tell anybody, and a young woman; Natasha, No Last Name Listed. She still sat at the table, holding a large glass of tea wrapped in both hands, looking for all the world perfectly bored.

But Quatre could tell she wasn't. Her knuckles were white and her face was pale, the part of it that he could see. One of the battles had taken her right eye, and an eye-patch hid the cavity for more squeamish stomachs. It still hampered her on occasion, but her day to day life didn't provide her with a lot of reason to go anywhere, now. The meetings with Quatre and the others were basically the only reason she went out anywhere, except on off-hours to the mess for meals. And while she had a room, she usually slept in her Suit, the Hekate, just like most of the pilots did.

For a long moment, Quatre didn't answer her. He looked at the others, still coming to, a little groggily-- James, Michael, Rebecca, and even Steven, of all people-- and then looked back at Natasha, who certainly wasn't. Why?

Quatre ran over the minutes before his blackout and then reached to Sandrock, brimming and bubbling with excitement to check his information. Then he smiled at her, soft and reassuring. “Tea please.”

Natasha scowled at him and poured him a new cup. There was a towel on the floor under the edge of the table. When she handed it over to him, he took a careful sip and then reached out to touch the other four, testing and checking against them, too. They had all been soldiers; certainly, they had all followed the same procedure.

Natasha's scowl deepened. “I can hear you all talking around me, you know.”

Off to his side, James grinned at her. Quatre watched the exchange closer, watching Natasha's whole form slowly relax a little. Disarmed, in a way Quatre apparently wasn't capable of. “Sorry! Acquiring a consensus of what happened.”

“I can tell you what happened. You five keeled over. I'm amazed I managed to find a heartbeat in your bodies with how fast mine was beating. Thought for sure the MC was going to walk in and think I had killed all of you.”

“Would be the perfect setup for you! Why, liquid everywhere. Could have just slipped in a little poison...”

On the other side, Steven blanched. Natasha unwound some more.

Quatre rested back against the cushions and took it in, as James exchanged precise barbs at her and she relaxed more and more. Of the five of them, only James and Natasha had come from the same group, so of course James knew her better than he did. Quatre had read the files that had managed to be collected on them, but files were not the individuals.

After several more moments of back-and-fourth, Natasha forked her mug of tea over to her associate, looking considerably healthier than she had moments ago. James took it without any protest, downed about half of it, and passed it back. Then she frowned at them all.

“Now does anyone want to tell me what happened?”

“We received a transmission.”

Optimus. Sandrock had told him once about the mech, shared what memories there were to share. Now Quatre's heart ached with longing and respect and hope, because he had heard that voice himself now, and he had heard the words that had been carried on it.

But as Natasha stared at them, Quatre's heart began to sink with the realization that she had not heard any such transmission at all. He recounted everyone who was here, and checked their differences, and felt ill.

Only the most Sensitive pilots might have been capable of catching such a long-range signal themselves. It hadn't come from anywhere remotely nearby. And all those pilots were in this room right now.

Five of six had caught it. The only real difference that could have mattered was a painfully sharp reminder that the world they had crafted and carved in this universe didn't exist outside it right now.

Everyone here had a suit which had been an Autobot before the war had made them require a new body and some hefty rewiring. Back when they could propel themselves, and didn't require a human to aid them even a little.

But not Natasha.

Natasha was different. Natasha was different because her suit was Hekate.

Before her refitting, Hekate had been a Decepticon.


End file.
